Buy food from people who work with nature, not against it.

A USDA report shows that so-called "extreme" organic famers gain a higher return on their investment.

RODALE NEWS, STATE COLLEGE, PA—Referring to people who question industrial-scale, modern chemical agriculture as "extremists," the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBA) last month delivered a charged speech at the group's annual conference in Seattle, effectively declaring war on the organic, sustainable food movement. "A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers, and how we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule," said Bob Stallman, president of AFBA. "The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude. The days of their elitist power grabs are over."

THE DETAILS: Stallman is also fired up about climate change, taking aim against policy that would pay farmers to sequester carbon by planting more trees. "At the very time we need to increase our food production, climate-change legislation threatens to slash our ability to do so," he said. "The world will continue to depend on food from the United States. To throttle back our ability to produce food—at a time when the United Nations projects billions of more mouths to feed—is a moral failure."

But while industrial-farming spokespersons often hide the unpleasant side of their farming practices behind the battle cry, "Feed the World," research is finding that using organic methods is actually more beneficial, producing higher yields and livable income for farmers. In fact, a 2008 United Nations report concluded that organic farming can feed Africa and bring higher incomes to the poor, rural farmers there. Food production rose, and sometimes even doubled, when farmers there traded in chemical methods for more sustainable, organic ones. And while Stallman criticized proponents of sustainability as ignoring the importance of economic concerns, last week the United States Department of Agriculture released statistics that seem to undercut Stallman's argument. In the agency's first major look at certified-organic farmers and ranchers, the survey revealed that organic farmers who don't buy into the use of agrichemicals get a much higher return on investment than chemical farmers do.

"The real moral failure is that the American Farm Bureau is, for their own financial gain, forcing chemical dependency on farmers," says Maria Rodale, CEO of Rodale Inc, and author of the upcoming book, Organic Manifesto, available in March 2010.